Pieces of My Sister's Life by Elizabeth Arnold Read Free Book Online

clock to click towards three.
    Mr. Suter was heavy. Not just heavy, he was massive, his belly leading the rest of him by a good two feet. I used to think it was cute how he was always so excited over the stupidest things. Now it just seemed sad to me, like he was acting out some stereotype. Even sadder because on this day I could hardly pay attention, let alone laugh back.
    “Don’t you get it?” he said. “Dickens was like the sitcom of the nineteenth century! Folks would buy their Sunday papers and turn straight to the story, maybe first because it made them laugh, but then because they got involved with the characters!”
    Leslie was scribbling furiously. I peered over at her paper.
Dickens…19teenth cenchery…Sunday papers…first laugh then charicters.
God, she was writing down everything.
Ditz,
I wrote in my notebook, circled the word and crossed it out.
    Three-two-one, the bell. The class shuffled their books into their bags, not caring that Mr. Suter was mid-sentence. Only Eve and I stayed at our desks. We turned to each other, and then I nodded. “Let’s go.”
    “You think they’re home?”
    “Mrs. Caine’s always home, just about. This better have worked, or else we’ll have gotten Bert and Georgia pissed for nothing.”
    Eve shrugged. “Look, the question is who they like better, us or Bert and Georgia, which is a no-brainer, and who they believe more. And we were good last night. I even felt sorry for myself. No competition.”
    I tried to smile. “You were good. I felt sorry for you too.”
    We walked home without speaking and stood outside the Caines’ front door, unsure if it would be right to assume this was where we belonged.
    Suddenly Eve pulled at my arm and pointed at the picture window. Bert and Georgia sat with their backs to us. On the sofa across the room, Mrs. Caine poured tea and Mr. Caine reached for a cookie. As we watched, Mrs. Caine laughed and Georgia threw back her head, tittering, “Oh, no!”
    Eve watched, unblinking, then turned to me. “I’ll be right back. You stay here.”
    I nodded, watching as Bert rose to accept a cup of tea. “Must’ve changed five times,” he said. “I’d go to check on her, and there she’d be by the mirror, new dress, new hat, new gloves.”
    Eve ran across the lawn and I sat on the front step, knocked softly on the porch rail, then lined four fallen leaves neatly against the step. This done, I reached for the comfort of Daddy’s key necklace and squeezed my eyes tight-shut. Of course they were getting along; the Caines liked everybody. Bert and Georgia would tell their little stories, the Caines would laugh about the overdramatism of teenagers, and when we came inside they’d hug us and send us home.
    More laughter. Georgia’s voice. “Well, it could’ve been the most important day of my life. Wouldn’t you say it’s better to be prepared than look like you don’t care?”
    “Sure it is,” Mrs. Caine replied. “I’d have done the same, I bet.”
    The stuttering hope of the last hours vaporized, and my body flooded with a hot red frustration. How stupid were we? How stupid to think the Caines cared how our lives would be.
    “Scream.”
    I looked up. Eve stood in the driveway, hands behind her back. A loud whisper, “Kerry, scream.” She brought one arm forward, lifted it to her head, and I gasped. Daddy’s handgun.
    Time stood still. I could see the image before me and struggled to put the pieces together: A finger on a trigger, Eve’s eyes bright with expectation, the black barrel in wild tufts of brown hair. I screamed.
    Then everything happened at once. I jumped up and ran down the drive. The front door opened, Mrs. Caine’s voice, “God, no!” A cry from Georgia, Eve’s eyes sparkling with a wild, neuron-firing look, the thump of someone’s body hitting the porch floor as I dove for the gun. The trigger squeezed beneath Eve’s finger, and for a second I imagined the ear-shattering explosion of skull and brain and